A little polish in the time of COVID

[Interested Party]

Originally Posted by gp

perhaps a useful tip from the numismatic world :

for gold and silver one can use specific cleaning chemicals which are free avalaible on the market, but for base metal one never use chemicals as it will have a huge negative impact to say the least.
Even for some silver Medieval, Roman or Greek coins chemicals can have a negative impact on the metal (discolouring, weakening the surface structure f.i.) and hence the value.

This is not so much the case ( value impact) with blades I would presume but nevertheless can result in unwated marks and stains.

A perfect alternative is vaseline: as it is not an agressive material at all, you gently with your fingers rub it over the dirty spot and leave it there for some time. This can be 15 minutes to an hour till even the next day.
Remove the vaseline with a cotton cloth and the dirt and or corrosion will come off.
If the required effect is not yet there, repeat it a couple of times and you'll see succes will be there at least.
It works for coins and I also used it on blades and metal scabbards.

Positive side effect is that a small layer of vaseline always remains which protect the metal against water, dirt, humidity and temperature.
Henceforth safeguarding your cold weapon.
Neverteless over time some dust might get onto the vaseline, so again clean it gently with a dry piece of cloth and add with your fingertip a small layer of vaseline.

An alternative or second solution :

in the numismatic world sometimes colourless nail polish is used for protection of zinc or iron coins: a tiny drop could be used on the former corrosive point / spot of a blade after cleaning to seal it as well as vaseline does. But then again it is up to you to decide if that "drop of polish" is acceptable on your weapon....

And if it doesn't come of or not completely, nothing can be done except an Elijah Craig to polish off the pain from your soul a little...

GP I want to thank you for your advice. The volatility I spoke of was concerning the storage of Nital and the fear that I might burn down my work shop through improper storage as the building heats to 130F in the summer while I'm at work. I really should add a solar powered vent fan.

The Vaseline trick I will put into my catalogue and give it a try shortly as I have some coins to clean on a hilt. Attracting dust is a problem here as we have had 2 dust storms in the past week.

I will have to try Elijah Craig. I generally ease my pain with mezcal or rye these days (summer/winter respectively).

I was rereading some old threads and found this one again http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ighlight=nital. I had forgotten where I picked up the trick of parafilm to protect surfaces. Does anyone have any further experience/feedback/hearsay regarding Iron(III)sulfate? I.e. method of use, duration of contact with the surface to be etched, is it as messy and rust prone during cleaning as ferric chloride?

[JBG163]

Actually, you put your blade into slightly heated Ferrochloric acid, during the time you want (just check to see the pattern coming), then, you neutralize it with sodium hydroxide solution. It will prevent the rusting process.

[Interested Party]

I thought as long as we were on kindjals and patterned steel it might be time to bring this thread back out from 2010. The archives really are deep in this forum. I find some new information by accident almost every time I get a chance to dig around and hoped newer members like myself who weren't present for the original discussion may be intrigued. I have noticed an evolution in the opinions of our long term members. Attitudes concerning interpretation of pieces seems to evolve as historical perspective and experience are gained. Scholarship continues to amass and maybe become somewhat less esoteric.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=11694

It is interesting to see that many people have the same trouble as me in being able to identify wootz, sham or otherwise, from finely layered laminates.

[ariel]

Generally, Caucasian bladesmiths did not work with wootz at all. The exception to the rule was Geurk Eliarov ( Elizarov, Elizarashvili) who used Indian ingots and very questionably, his son Kahraman.
Although I have a Georgian bulat (wootz ) blade. A very similar twin of it is in the Hermitage museum and you can see it in the Miller's book " Kaukasiske vabben..." , but no wootz is mentioned. Miller dated it to the early 18th century, well before Eliarov's birth.
Thus, we still may not know the whole story.
In the 19th century, Daghestani baldesmiths , the main blade manufacturers for the entire Caucasus, avoided orders for mechanical damascus blades like a plague. They viewed them as too expensive in terms of coal requirements and time/ effort consuming.

As to Anosov.... He worked for many years trying to make bulat, including using crushed diamond as a source of carbon, but nothing came out of it. Suddenly, a Russian Captain Massalsky was sent to Persia, and brought back a full description of the process. Both Massalsky and Anosov's papers were published in the same issue of the Russian metallurgical journal, and from that moment Anosov started mass producing what he called "bulat of the best Persian patterns". Regretfully, all the existing Anosov's blades show low-contrast Sham at the most. Personally, I am not sure that Anosov "rediscovered" the secret of bulat. At the most, he got instructions received from Persian masters how to obtain ingots ( of whatever quality), but was totally clueless about the secrets of forging. He sent a "bulat" yataghan as a gift to Faraday together with very flattering letter, but one can see small smudges of something vaguely resembling bulat only at the tip of the blade. Faraday never responded to Anosov's letter.

[JBG163]

Let's say also that bloomed steel generally don't react to chemicals, giving a grey color everywhere !
That can be an clue when pieces are old, and does not react to any chemicals.

[Interested Party]

Originally Posted by ariel

Generally, Caucasian bladesmiths did not work with wootz at all. The exception to the rule was Geurk Eliarov ( Elizarov, Elizarashvili) who used Indian ingots and very questionably, his son Kahraman.
Although I have a Georgian bulat (wootz ) blade. A very similar twin of it is in the Hermitage museum and you can see it in the Miller's book " Kaukasiske vabben..." , but no wootz is mentioned. Miller dated it to the early 18th century, well before Eliarov's birth.
Thus, we still may not know the whole story.
In the 19th century, Daghestani baldesmiths , the main blade manufacturers for the entire Caucasus, avoided orders for mechanical damascus blades like a plague. They viewed them as too expensive in terms of coal requirements and time/ effort consuming.

As to Anosov.... He worked for many years trying to make bulat, including using crushed diamond as a source of carbon, but nothing came out of it. Suddenly, a Russian Captain Massalsky was sent to Persia, and brought back a full description of the process. Both Massalsky and Anosov's papers were published in the same issue of the Russian metallurgical journal, and from that moment Anosov started mass producing what he called "bulat of the best Persian patterns". Regretfully, all the existing Anosov's blades show low-contrast Sham at the most. Personally, I am not sure that Anosov "rediscovered" the secret of bulat. At the most, he got instructions received from Persian masters how to obtain ingots ( of whatever quality), but was totally clueless about the secrets of forging. He sent a "bulat" yataghan as a gift to Faraday together with very flattering letter, but one can see small smudges of something vaguely resembling bulat only at the tip of the blade. Faraday never responded to Anosov's letter.

I remember my grandfather giving me a synopsis of Anosov as a late teen and being captivated and caught up in his dream of ultra high carbon steels of over 1% that were both hard and tough. Unfortunately I was a bit too lazy to create my own bloomery to try to replicate the process. Anosov's claims were astounding and 30 years later seem to have been proven unfounded. Even if I had created an ingot I would have worked it at too high a temp and lost the pattern or tried to harden it and lost the pattern that way because that was the tradition I knew and could not have imagined any other process. The cost of coal for that endeavor was a bit beyond my means as well at the time as all my money was being put into school. Stress cracking blades in differential hardening experiments was already heartbreaking enough. ;(

Massalsky I don't know or remember at all. I will put him on my list of things to learn about.

The Caucassian kindjal did not seem to use the red bulat often from what I've read in contemporary sources. Conversely Y. Miller, Caucasian Arms... does call a fair few of the blades in his book bulat steel. Some are obviously imported blades, ex. plate 41. Do you know if there was a significant tradition of wootz being used by Persian or Turkish (I've read Turkish wootz kindals were much more common) smiths for their qamas? Plate 43 of the same book being an example that I have always wondered if the blade was produced elsewhere outside the Caucasus and decorated in Tiflis. You have gotten to handle more of these blades than I ever will so please forgive my badgering.

Finally, where did the Dagestanies got their steel? Did they begin to import large amounts of European raw materials? It seems if they were still producing bloomery steel lamination would not have gone out of fashion.


PS. Back to the original question of the thread; Could the pattern in the blade featured in this thread be "Large, visible martensite crystals" Rivkin, arms & Armor... p. 70, figure 6?

Sorry for a lack of documenting pictures or scans in this post. If I get a chance I will fix it.

[Interested Party]

Originally Posted by JBG163

Actually, you put your blade into slightly heated Ferrochloric acid, during the time you want (just check to see the pattern coming), then, you neutralize it with sodium hydroxide solution. It will prevent the rusting process.

Interesting. How long in the sodium hydroxide? Is it heated as well. It would cause a darkening if left for a bit. Given that a bit of a typographic pattern had been achieved by the ferrochloric acid I would imagine the neutralization process would enhance the pattern. If I remember correctly we used a solution of sodium hydroxide as a bluing agent in a heated container for an extended period of time then washed and polished the carbon steel.


Thanks for the bloom steel info. I can use all the clues I can get. I need to look for some old cast steel pieces in my shop and play with them to take a look for the shear patterns as well as a control for future evaluations.

[JBG163]

The solution will just neutralize the acid action by compensation, in order to came back to ph 7. You can also use Dishes soap but it a less more effective.

[Interested Party]

Originally Posted by Interested Party

Does anyone have any further experience/feedback/hearsay regarding Iron(III)sulfate? I.e. method of use, duration of contact with the surface to be etched, is it as messy and rust prone during cleaning as ferric chloride?

Rolland M had the answer to how to use sodium persulfate in a 2015 thread. "For pattern welded steel I preferably use sodium persulfate (fine etch crystal), 20 Gramm in 100 mL distilled water (~70°C ) with a pad, brush or Syringe." I hope this may help someone combing the archives one day for restoration information. Attached below is the entire thread.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...ighlight=badek